George Grantham Bain News Photograph collection

The Library of Congress's Prints & Photographs Division is pleased to announce that all the negatives in the George Grantham Bain news photograph collection (nearly 40,000 glass negatives in all) have now been digitized and are available for searching in the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog. The collection, which represents the archive of one of America's earliest news picture agencies, features an array of personalities and news events, particularly in New York City, for the period 1900-1931.

The collection richly documents sports events, theater, celebrities, crime, strikes, disasters, political activities including the woman suffrage campaign, conventions and public celebrations. The photographs Bain produced and gathered for distribution through his news service were worldwide in their coverage, but there was a special emphasis on life in New York City. The bulk of the collection dates from the 1900s to the mid-1920s, but scattered images can be found as early as the 1860s and as late as the 1930s.

For other new collections at the Prints and Photographic section of the Library of Congress see: What's New at the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog